Projects like these are so fitting throughout the Caribbean, friends of mine have worked two decades to begin the industry on the islands like Aruba and Curacao. Despite the abundant resource, the powers that be fought hard against sanity.
Which Vestas turbines are these? (and notice the small, sweet foundation footprint). "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
Some of the most evolved turbines in the world. cool, J. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
that pic of you up there is epic, saved to drive.
the only place i ever saw trees bent over that much was south point of the big island of hawaii, another place where windpower is begging to be installed.
so proud of what you're doing, J, to further planetary sanity.
when i think of how much oil hawaii imports it makes me want to weep... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I'm glad to see you're wearing a harness and a hard hat. Just thinking about being up that high makes me dizzy.
As Crazy Horse comments below it looks like the project was installed with minimum impact on the landscape. Kudos.
Paul Paul Gipe
The trade-off was supposed to be that the heavy power train didn't need to be carried aloft as in horizontal axis turbines, but seeing proper angle of attack only a small portion of a rotation was too much to overcome.
On the plus side, such turbines are easy to build, transport (by donkey even) and erect, so may prove to be useful in windy 3rd world applications.
Here's one in the Tehachapis that mirrors those in the Altamont Pass.
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
I always got a thrill from working high and always availed myself of such opportunities. I take it you share that sensibility. Congratulations. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
None of the technology is transferable to offshore, at least as it's practiced in Europe. Everything there is specialized for a particular technology configuration only applicable to the "pool table" of the North Sea. As an example, Germany's largest shipper, Beluga Shipping, in a joint venture with the largest construction company Hoch-Tief, yesterday announced the orders for two new transport and erection ships, with a further two if all goes as planned. (Here in Bremen!)
PS. I can now officially announce that Deutsche WindGuard is technical manager of Germany's first offshore project, Alpha Ventus. It is an exciting time to have moved to Bremen. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
Offshore, the turbines used are too big to be transported onland - so the factories are by the sea or by rivers and the equipment is transported directly by ship or barge to the sites. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
it is now providing 20% of the island's overall electricity needs, replacing dirty and expensive fuel-oil in the process. At night, it can produce up to 60% of the demand.
Any plans to go 100% with further projects? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I have some colleagues who study Africa, and we've talked several times about how there's a huge untapped market for renewable energy products, particularly in West Africa. The key being the marginal cost of production. In many small villages, there is still little or no electricity absent village generators.
And when you are in someplace like central Nigeria, and you are producing electricity with with a 1500 W generator using gasoline. Well, the per kw price is pretty darn high. You look at something like that and you figure that your getting something like 3.75 kwh per gallon of gasoline. Even at 0.50 USD per gallon, that's still 0.133 USD per kwh. And considering that getting gas delivered to a village probably raises fuel costs two to three times, small scale wind and solar are intensely competitive. The problem is primarily one of financing. But, with the marginal cost of electricity so, so, so high, any increased start up costs are overwhelmed by decreased costs of operation. And with the alternative being so expensive, it's possible to actually make money selling to what we think of as people to poor to buy...
Yet, ironically, some of the best markets for micro to low utility grade renewables are precisely in these countries that lack developed infrastructure. Particularly so when you look at products like these: (in German)
If you look to the product page for the VAT ENAIRGIES 6, which has a top output of 6kwh, you'll see that it kicks in at about 7 mph (11 kph) and at somewhere between 13-16 mph (21-26 kph) you're hitting that 0.75 kwh sweet spot that is comparable to 1500 W generator working at half load (which is what they use to calculate how long a tank of gas will last.)
The thing weighs around 1800 lbs or 800 kgs. Which means it's heavy, but you can get it to a location on a truck. Walking away from Copenhagen, one of the sticking points seems to be finding a way for poor villagers in Africa to turn on the lights without jacking up carbon emissions even higher than they are now.
The easiest weigh to start displacing electric production that uses fossil fuels is to start targeting these applications where the marginal cost is quite high because it makes money to do the right thing here. This isn't only true in developing countries. The little wind turbine whose picture I put up here is produced in Munster, NRW, DE and production is starting soon in Muncie, IN, USA (my hometown) They are for use for street lights and use both a small vertical axis turbine and solar panels. Street lights are another great area for renewables. It's a huge cost to get lines to the location (particularly with urban sprawl in the US) and to keep the thing up. A little money upfront here can go a long way towards saving money in the end. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
To MfM, the financing problem - as I point out - is not difficult to crack if you rebase your thinking about value.
Energy Pools are not Rocket Science, and it was interesting to see the first electronic currency based on electricity launched in Copenhagen the other day. (my bold).
The Concept | Kiwah
A community is like an engine; it makes things happen. The Kiwah is its fuel. Kiwah is a special purpose currency, designed to enable transactions between people, groups and companies that actively want to build a society that is CO2 slim and based on an inclusive world. The unit of account is the Kilowatt-Hour.
Btw, MfM, I just rescued your 'linked in' message from my spam folder....Thanks. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I went to school at BSU and my family still lives nearby.
I've written critically about this "project" at
http://www.wind-works.org/SmallTurbines/MuncieVAWT--AnExpensiveDemonstration.html
Muncie VAWT--An Expensive Demonstration--As can be quickly seen in comparison to the Bergey Excel, the VAT-20 kW turbine is overrated by almost three times. Unfortunately, this is typical of the new crop of VAWTs. Designer's and promoters greatly overstate what the turbines are truly capable of delivering. . .
I photographed the Savonious rotors on the light standards about a month ago.
pgipe@igc.org Paul Gipe
And the videos are stupendous. Everyone on my mailing list loves to get Jerome's photos of wind power equipment, so the videos will be a huge treat.
Karen in Traunwalchen 'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher
An interesting affair to say the least. If wind is to reach 10 % in Sweden, billions will have to spent on strengthening the grid and possibly on exploiting the protected rivers or building gas turbines. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Note the protected rivers in the far north. Roughly 10-15 % of the Swedish population live north of Dalälven. There's a reason the nukes are all in the south... Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
An interesting affair to say the least. If wind is to reach 10 % in Sweden, billions will have to spent on strengthening the grid and possibly on exploiting the protected rivers or building gas turbines.
That is not the estimate of people at the grid division at Vattenfall. The other year at a seminar a representative claimed that the cost for strengthening the grid enough to deal with an all-wind scenario was about two öre/kWh. The rep also explained that dealing with wind variations is not harder then dealing with nuclear plants having emergency shut-downs and off periods. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
oh, wait ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
to work towards a more sustainable future without endangering our way of life.
it's my understanding that "our way of life" is at the root of what causes the problems in the first place. Would you please explain what you meant by that? I'm not asking for a description of how windpower will provide transportation fuels for a sustainable civilization, just, what about our way of life isn't endangering? "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
